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by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9928466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: The blackened skies had parted and the fires of Niflheim engulfed the city. When Nyx woke up after, Noctis wasn't moving.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156569640397/ooo-if-youre-still-taking-prompts-nyxnoctis) for #20 in [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156511645930/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you)

He woke up and the city was on fire. In the blissful darkness of unconsciousness, he’d let himself believe it was all a bad dream. That he was back in his apartment, sunlight straining through the window screens, the city waking up around him, and Noctis, his beautiful, perfect light, sprawled against his chest, sleeping breaths warming his neck, _safe_.

Reality cruelly informed him that _that_ was the dream. An illusion of peace. Just like that damn treaty. The idyllic image in Nyx’s head went up in smoke like every damn building in Insomnia. Another home that Niflheim stole from him. He crawled onto his hands and knees, feeling every bone in his body scream out in agony. What the _hell_ …

As he was moving, Nyx felt the body beneath him and it all came back to him in a flash as burning as the blast which knocked him out. He froze, a terrible chill spreading from the hand he laid against his shoulder throughout his entire body. He wasn’t moving… There was blood… Nyx was afraid to roll him over. If he turned him over and those eyes were staring blankly back at him… _His_ eyes, his _home_ , his endless blue sky, ended…

“Noct?”

 _You’re a soldier, Nyx_ , he heard someone that wasn’t him say in his head. _Don’t hesitate_. _Assess_.

But he’d never felt fear like this before. Not since his sister. Not since he’d lost everything. He couldn’t do this again, damn the Six, they couldn’t take this from him. Not him. Not Noctis. They were supposed to take his own life before they took his Noctis.

He couldn’t breathe as he rolled him over, his body completely malleable to Nyx’s touch. His hair was sticky with blood, covering his eyes. When Nyx dared to move it with shaking hands, his eyes were closed. _Okay._ _You don’t know._ _You have to know._

As delicately as if he were touching glass, Nyx curled an arm beneath his shoulders, dragging his limp body into his lap, and lowering his ear to his chest.

“Please…” he begged anything that was listening. “Please please _please_ …”

If he was alive, then Noctis had to be, he _had_ to be. He’d thrown himself over him to protect him from the blast – some daemonic energy bolt from somewhere in the blackened skies. If it was going to kill anyone, it should have killed Nyx. He has to be safe. He _has_ to.

…But he couldn’t hear anything. He was trying so hard, but he could only hear his own, beating so hard in his ears they could have burst and bled. It _had_ to be there, somewhere, one pulse, one breath, one _anything_ …

“ _Please_ , damnit, give me something… _Don’t_ …”

He pulled his head up, hastily running his fingers over his neck, but they were shaking too damn much for him to feel something, even if it were there. He felt his eyes burning like the fires all around them. He searched them for… something, he didn’t know what. Salvation. Hope. Anything but death. But the city was destroyed, and he was alone. Again.

“No no no no no…” he denied, over and over again because this wasn’t happening, not again, _damnit._ “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

He ran his hands over his face, smudging blood and black soot out of his closed eyes. Underneath it all, it looked just like he was sleeping. It was just like every night when he collapsed, spent, into the bed beneath him, drifting into dreams as Nyx mouthed lazy kisses into his hair. It was just like every morning, just like that morning he’d dreamed up for today. He was sleeping, he loved sleeping, he slept in all the time, he was just sleeping…

“Please, Noct, I really need you right now, little king.”

He held him so tightly, kissed his neck like he always did to coax him awake. It took a few tries, he reminded himself when it didn’t work. He kissed it again, kissed his jaw, kissed all over his face, feeling himself breaking on the inside, feeling him losing everything all over again, kissed his mouth, kissed him, and cried, and kissed him.

He buried his face in his chest and _screamed_ , pulling him around him and pretending that none of it was real. He was home when he was with Noct. He wrapped himself around him and he was _home_ , home was _right_ , home was _safe_ , they were safe, it was all okay and he couldn’t, he couldn’t do this, he was lost, he couldn’t…

A sound tore through him then that he hadn’t heard in years. Not since Galahd burned and he buried his sister. One sob, turned into another, turned into another, jerking through him like hundreds of bullets. And the tears hurt so bad. Scalding tracks of emptiness down his face. There was nothing left for him without Noctis. Home was gone, everyone was gone, and he was still alive? Of all the pathetic people in the whole damn world, why was he alive?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to die for his country, his brothers, his love. It was supposed to be him. It was always supposed to be him. _Why wasn’t it him?_

“I’m sorry…” he cried into him. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

That I failed you. That I failed everyone. That I didn’t protect a single, damn person. That all the fighting was for absolutely nothing if I couldn’t protect you.

If there were gods on the earth, maybe they heard him. Maybe he’d just been too stupid to hear it himself. But as he sobbed like a scared, useless child into the blood-stained skin he used to breathe like air, it shifted under him.

He jerked back, hands going to his face again, thumbs running beneath his eyes, willing them to open. For them to be blue and beautiful and the bright light that gave his dark little world a purpose.

“Please open your eyes, please…”

Just like waking up every morning. It took some coaxing, some sweet words, some kisses, and then they cracked open, blinking against the firelights, looking blearily up at him. A little clouded, a little gray with smoke, but there it was. His blue sky, his freedom, his home when nothing else ever was. Noctis looked at him, genuinely confused by the tears on his face.

“Nyx?…You don’t cry.”

Nyx felt all of the breath leave him at once. He wrapped his arm around his head and pulled it against his chest, rocking back and forth. He knew that if the blast didn’t kill him, then smothering the prince with his own body just might do it. But he couldn’t get close enough to him. Couldn’t pull him deep enough into him to protect him from the whole world.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he laughed into his hair, feeling his world smash back together again as quickly as it fell apart.

Noctis hummed some sort of reply somewhere beneath the arms Nyx trapped him inside of. He pushed weakly at his chest to get enough space to speak. “Are you okay?”

Nyx crushed a kiss to the top of his head and just held him for a long time. The whole city was burning, but he was still home.


End file.
